To celebrate bamboo as a building material, the first International Bamboo Architecture Biennale took place in the small village of Baoxi, China.

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Curated by artist Ge Qiantao and architect George Kunihiro, the event invited 12 architects to reveal how this traditional material can be incorporated into contemporary design and architecture.

Julien Lanoo, the photographer who took these images, was really inspired by the biennale. “For centuries, bamboo was used in these rural communities in many different ways,” he told My Modern Met. “A construction material with many qualities, it has or is disappearing quickly on the Chinese mainland in favor of concrete. The fast and vast expansion of new Chinese cities overruled many traditional ways of building.”

From a ceramics museum to a youth hostel – each bamboo structure built for the architecture biennale serves a specific purpose and function. “After the Biennale, this will become a visitors center, hotel and lodge and learning center,” Lanoo said. “A new lifeline for the village, attracting outsiders, for its peace and quiet, and its representation of the roots of Chinese culture and the importance and beauty of bamboo.”